


State of My Head

by Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse of Time, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Godtier Powers, Multi, Orgasm Denial, Orgasm through Death, Orgy, Snuff, Suicide, Writhing Deathgasm, but it doesn't stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:09:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot/pseuds/Niji_Hitomi_Iscariot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who knew making you immortal would make death your biggest fetish? Somebody should really explain it to everybody else, but when you're part of the Dead Kids Club... everybody else just doesn't get it. Sorry Roxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State of My Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aewin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aewin/gifts).



> Edit: 12-25-2017 - If the only comment you're going to make on my work is to nitpick my headcanons, fuck off. You'll be deleted. This wasn't written for you.
> 
> Edit 2: If you're too young to understand YKINMK and DLDR, you're too young to coach me about "erasure".
> 
> So [Aewin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Aewin) gave me this prompt for [Drone Season](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/droneseason2016), and I didn't quite get it finished in time to throw it into the collection. It's seriously not as dark as it sounds in the tags. XD
> 
> Prompt:  
>  _"Weird way to start this off, but I've been looking for a long time for a fic where a character or characters get off on dying. This would likely be a god tier, but any other method of revival is acceptable. I suggested Dirk and Dave first since they're both god-tier and I could see this out of them. Also great would be Sollux/Aradia or Sollux/Dave with time rewinding involved._
> 
>  
> 
> _It can be self/masturbatory, or assisted by a partner. Any method/reason for enjoying it - asphyxiation kink, angst/self-loathing, extreme masochism, whatever._
> 
>  
> 
> _This is more open than I leave most prompts, but I'd like to make it the broadest offered since it's a topic that few authors or artists are willing to tackle."_

Whenever anyone asked, the Game had made everything perfect. Of course it had. The New World was bright and flush with promise. Lots of sprawling forests and open water. Clean air and no pollution of any kind, not even lights or sounds. Especially at night, when a certain number of surviving players headed for sleep; tucked away in their own beds, in their houses - sorry, hives. That was the accepted term after all, given that twenty-four players versus eight was kind of a big deal.

A lot of stuff was that way now. Troll terms just woven into the language like they’d always been there. Hell, Trolls and Carapacians and Consorts of all species, woven into the world like they’d always been there.

Only the players remembered.

A time when the world hadn’t been singular. When the moons that rose overhead were pink and green. When the sun was actually deadly rather than just annoying. When you could sit on the top of your apartment building and never really see the stars for all of the streetlights around you.

You’re the only one who notices that, you think.

Dirk and Roxy grew up in that post-apocalyptic, no-more-humans future. Jade and Jake both lived on that island in the middle of the pacific, and Rose in the middle of a deep forest. Neither of them had many other people around. And John and Jane? Well, they had the other houses, but it wasn’t what you grew up with. It was suburbs. A dinky off shoot of a distant city that only really blocked their horizon in peripheral and didn’t exactly factor into their everyday thoughts. They didn’t even go see the Space Needle, for chrissake!

It sets you apart from all seven of them in a way you hadn’t really noticed until they were happily cavorting around the new house you all live in now. 

You think maybe Davesprite, or Deva as they’re calling themself now, gets it, but they have other shit, blurred memories from their time fused with Nepeta, that makes them more troll than human anymore. And that’s without the bird factors. You also don’t think you’d really want to talk to them about this anyway. In your experience, one-winged angels tend to be assholes. And you? You are the biggest asshole. It is you.

Kitkat tries. Listens to you ramble on about inane shit that always used to piss you off but now you miss more keenly than any slice you ever earned from Bro.

So that’s how you find yourself standing on the edge of the roof, above your room in the attic because you can’t stand being any closer to the ground than that, just like you can’t stand sleeping on a real bed frame.

Everything’s too quiet. Too still. Equius, Deva, Nepeta, and Hal are off on their hunting trip. You tracked them disappearing into the woods when you first climbed up here. Kitkat managed to actually stuff a sock in his dancestor’s mouth long enough for the movie-fanatics to get the show started - some alchemized hybrid between the Thresh Prince of Bel Air and Hitch, you think. All the humans except Rose have found their beds or are passed out in the living room. And of the rest of the trolls, most are busying themselves in their own hives, dotting through the woods all the way down towards the beach where you know Mr. ICP has set up his shit - as far away from you as physically possible while still not completely out of contact. You don’t begrudge Kitkat his diamond - you know enough now to know that it’s important on both ends - but… at the same time… fuck, that asshole pisses you off.

Can Town is dark.

And you’re stalling.

You came up here for a reason. You always come up here for a reason. You can’t help it. That moment, the one right before The End and just after It’s Too Late. Ironically, you live for that moment.

You remember a time when you dreaded it. You shied away from it, avoiding it at all costs to the sound of Terezi laughing manicly in your ear.

_ “D34D D4V3S 4R3 TH3 3N3MY!” _

She used to cackle at that, like it was some big cosmic joke to constantly see your own corpse, over and over and over again.

You think maybe that was why you used to crush on her. She found things funny that really shouldn’t have been funny, and that made them easier to deal with. But in the end she was all hard edges and by the time you got to meet her in person, you were so, so, tired of hard edges.

And gay.

Or well, you suppose if Deva is technically you, then that means in some form you’re bi because they had that thing with Jade in that one timeline, but you don’t really like to pry into it that far because they’re you, but not at the same time. And now they have that poly 4-way half-pale, half-flushed thing going on with the horse, the cat, and the Million Dollar Man. Yeah, ride that pony ‘til he mews! Bring him home to stable hot and motorized!! Git’r done, alt-self!

That… got away from you.

You shake your head and sigh, crossing your arms behind your head.

The sky feels like it’s an inverse of what you’re used to, all the glittering lights reflected back at you where you’re lost among the muddied greyness of the planet. A tiny push with your thoughts has you drifting towards the sky like you’re falling in reverse, letting the ground get further and further away.

Your body’s tense and expectant.

It’s only a matter of time now.

~*~

Roxy is the one who finds you in the morning, and her screech wakes you up from the nothingness. Yeah you’re that good. You’ve managed to draw out that moment, make it last for hours in real time, just to feel that tension, the edging before relief.

“Yo.” You croak - and yeah, breaking your neck was a stupid way to do it this time, you’re gonna have a sore throat for a week.

“David Elizabeth Strider don’t you dare ‘yo’ me!” She’s got her hands on her hips, and for all that she’s only a year older than you, she’s got that  _ mom _ pose down!

Testing everything is a matter of unconscious instinct, wiggling your toes, cracking your neck, rolling your shoulders. It’s all about making sure you came back alright. Which, you did. Of course you did. God tier has never let you down.

Except that one time with Jade and the helldogs, but you don’t think about that.

Or the millions of doomed timelines you’ve dealt with.

Or the possibility that the Game is dying now that it’s over for you, so god tier isn’t even really a thing anymore.

But you don’t think about that stuff, because god tier has never let you down.

She’s still rambling about worrying her, and Karkat, and everybody, about how you never know when the perversion of your lives will decide that suicide is just, about how if you’re having problems you should talk to someone...

And you whip back around at her, Strider style, and pop a smirk. “Sure, Mom. I’ll go brohug it out with my ectobiological brother-son. Right after breakfast.”

She huffs a little, “I don’t know what I’m even trying for here. You and DiStri... UGH! I need coffee!”

At the bottom of the stairs, around the corner from the communal areas your whole race uses, she shakes her head and marches off, leaving you there with a call for Jane.

You let your smirk drop and you sigh. She interrupted the best part.

Waking up from it is when you really get the flood of endorphins trying to get your body moving again. It warms you, rushing in your ears a bit like I-69 through Midtown. The New World doesn’t have traffic yet. No cars, no buses, no elderly Mexican abuelos complaining about ‘kids these days’, no thudding basslines, no wannabe gangsters trying to act tough, no actual gangsters gunning each other down. Yeah… in the waking up you can pretend for a few seconds that the world hasn’t changed.

But not when someone drags you back like you literally actually died.

So maybe your  _ petite mort _ is a bit more than  _ petite _ . It does the same damn thing! You’re an almost 17-year-old boy! They should be happy you aren’t smoking pot and shooting up heroine, given your parental upbringing and all. So you may have something of a fascination with death, specifically your own death. It’s not like it’s that reckless, really!

At least you aren’t preserving pieces of yourself in jars around your room like  _ some  _ people you could name!!

Dirk meets you on the stairs somewhere between the third and fourth floors. The two of you share the attic because he gets the same way you do about sleeping on the actual ground, only his issues are all tide up with floods. 

Yup, that was a fish pun right there. The Little Mermaid would be pleased.

He knows you almost as well as you know him, which is why he was originally going to be the one to wake you, but well, you suppose as long as someone woke you it still counts as a stable time loop. The Game allows for fudging like that now.

“So…” He gives his chin a small tilt, enough to betray his curiosity. He’s always curious about what it’s like for you.

You shrug. “Mom got in the way again. Thinks I need to ‘talk’ to someone.”

“Do you?”

“Nah. Just getting my rocks off like every other teenager in this hovel. Y’know, rubbing it out. Choking the chicken.”

“I think you enjoy the death puns almost as much as Aradia.” Dirk’s smiling though, so you know you’ve successfully conveyed that you’re alright. “Speaking of, she said the corpse party is at noon. Apparently you weren’t the only one to bleed your weed last night, and by bleed I do mean literally.”

“Ahh, the Bifurcated Wonder. I could almost be jealous, except that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t  _ actually _ plan things in twos.”

Without missing a beat, Dirk replies, “It just keeps happening.”

“Ayy!” You flash him a smile, and don’t quite wink, but the intent’s there. Bonding moment over, you give a small nod towards the stairs leading up, “So anybody in the shower?”

“Yeah, you. Just make sure you don’t slip. Two corpses at one party is one thing, but if they’re both the same person it just gets awkward.”

You give him another nod and head off to your room to fuck around on your computer for a while. Nobody’s online, which is another big change that’s contributed to your new ‘hobby’. Too much world for the nature-obsessed dork squad to explore, and most of the trolls, except for the freaky ones you don’t talk to much, are still passed out. That nocturnal vibe keeping them almost as anti-sun as you are. Or rather you are as them? Since theirs was the Death Star sun planet. 

Whatever, it means you have a chance to block out the next update for SBaHJ. You may not have the follower count that you did before the end of the world, but fuck it if you’re going to let something that trivial get in the way of updating art.

And when you get bored of that, you switch the stylus to your left hand and sigh because as consuming as making ironically shitty art is, it’s hard to make your body go against its natural instinct. So you slump down in your chair a little more and doodle. The first circle turns into the profile of a cat mid-jump, but you’re using green ink so you erase it, reminded of Nepeta and all things feline, which puts you on edge even though you know you and Deva are two completely different people. It’d be like Dirk being Bro. You shudder, a vague feeling of being watched coming over your shoulders, and skim through your color wheel…

No. No. Definitely not she’d kill you. No. AW HELL NAW. Ah… that’s better

And the feeling’s gone too, though you’re pretty sure someone just flash-stepped in and out of your room. At least according to the tic in your cheek; it always goes off when something reminds you of Bro. But eh, you’re far enough removed from it, and mellowed by your death this morning, that you can re-focus your full attention on the screen.

It starts with a trusty almost pencil grey that you don’t realize matches Karkat’s Trollian font until much much later, and you’re skimming across your tablet with the grace and ease of someone who picked up a crayon in early childhood and just never put it down. The form doesn’t take shape either fast or slow, it just exists, and the zen with which the existence is created fills you with the kind of blankness only a Dead Day can. Yes, this is what you were missing when Roxy woke you earlier. The stretch of a single moment where the universe isn’t counting in your head and the rhythm of entropy fades into the background. You can’t ever quite let time slip you by, but by yourself you try.

So it isn’t until you sit back that you actually become aware of how much you’ve put into what was supposed to be an exercise in wasting time. 

A fully rendered crow stares back at you. There’s a play of starlight over its/his wings, black intelligent eyes that bore out at the audience - you - questioning your very existence. The background is a wash of stars that fades into a city skyline. You know you unconsioucly meant for it to be Houston, but you weren’t referencing anything, so mostly it’s just blobs of gray with yellow, blue, pink, and purple shading on them. But you can tell your intent, how the sky becomes skyline with no natural stars, all the man made lights, the rush of traffic along the distant highways. The crow judges you, and knows what you’re doing to keep that longing from actually affecting you.

You push yourself away from the desk, your computer automatically saves the image whether you want it to or not, and at the moment you can’t trust yourself to make that decision. But you figure it’s got to be enough time to start the stable time loop.

Holy shit, you actually managed it!

Your clock is flashing 4:00 pm in bright, bold, red numbers.

It was only 10:30 when you sat down! You successfully wasted five and a half hours working on that damn feathery asshole; who is now judging you because you just remembered you were supposed to be at Aradia’s corpse party four hours ago.  _ Fuck! _

Reaching for your favorite Time hoodie, you blink, because it’s not where you left it, and you’re sure you haven’t moved it.

Yet...

The stable time loop!

Instantly you’re back in your room, a little over six hours before, and stretch your back, knowing you’ve got at least forty-five minutes before you come into the room.

A voice catches your ear from the other side of the door, “...don’t know what I’m gonna do with him, DiStri! I know he went up to the roof last night! You know what he does when he does that!”

You can’t hear Dirk’s response, but that’s typical of him, speaking just loud enough for people to hear he’s talking without actually enunciating. You think maybe it has something to do with anxiety? You don’t know, you’ve never felt the need to pry into that part of things. But he did grow up entirely alone on that water-logged hell-planet, so you figure he’s allowed to have a few quirks.

However, this is a golden opportunity. Because you’re back far enough that Roxy hasn’t gone out and found you in the garden yet. The incessant metronome in your mind warns you that if you’re going to prank her, you need to do it now.

“You’re in luck, Rox, I dunno what to do with me either.” You roll around your doorframe all smirks and confidence, but Dirk knows.

He has a Heart sense that counts each of your deaths like a ticker at a deli counter. So he allows a curl at the corner of his mouth, away from where Roxy can see, because he also somehow knows you’re out of Time.

Roxy huffs at you, and leans up into your face with the determined scowl of a woman set on doing something you’ll regret later, but all she says is, “Just you see what I put into your breakfast! You two both need to stop skulking around like somebody’s gonna jump out at you, and don’t think I can’t tell when you’re hiding in my shadows. I may not have all the secrets yet, but I’ll be a mutant cat’s grandma before you Strider boys can pull a fast one on me! You hear?!”

She storms off, Dirk snickers at you, and you’re acutely aware that she is without a doubt your ectobiological mother/daughter.

Your timer’s counting down so you give Dirk a salute, heading for the bathroom and that shower you were taking when you encountered your ecto-twin the first time since you died. You get inside with the door closed just in time to hear yourself ask if anyone’s in the shower, and you know his response, so you make it true, letting the water cascade over your head and face. Holding your breath reminds you of that one time when John was so pissed off it took both Peter Pan and Peter Pan Hook Version to calm him down. You aren’t as into autoerotic asphyxiation as Dirk is, but that edge with death when you’re still within the first 24 afterwards is enough to send shivers down your spine and make Lil’ Dave twitch in interest.

You don’t indulge. You have a party to DJ in just under an hour. So you towel off, taking care to primp and preen just as much as a shining symbol of homosexuality should, and flashstep into your room.

As predicted you’re deep in that Artist Zen that surprisingly few of the surviving players understands, so you don’t notice yourself lift your Time hoodie to get the jeans that are under it - the dark ones that hug your ass so that everybody knows you’re going commando - and pull a suitably ironic bright-red-with-a-faux-tux-printed-on-it shirt on with the right amount of force to give your hair that ‘just fucked’ look you know drives Bee Squared nuts.

And you’re gone, with just enough Time blur to make your Past Self tense in reaction.

~*~

The party starts about the way you’d expect, everybody hanging around their respective partners, clinging to the walls of social expectations that none of you really actually give a shit about. Kitkat’s there, but he looks about ready to fall over, so after about an hour, you and Aradia shoo out the ones who are up too late or up too early.

By the time you’re done, it’s just the Dead Kids Club left; you, Sollux, Aradia, and Dirk.

As soon as the door is shut behind Kitkat, who always frets about what goes on in these afterparty corpse parties, you vault the edge of the stage at the far wall of the room, pop up to your feet all smug and the center of attention, and decaptchalogue your timetables with a flash of light you have to give props to Rox for coding into your sylladex.

“Who’s ready to get this party really started!?” You spin the left disk, sending the whole room back a week to the sound of your favorite death mix.

_ “The only way I’m leavin’ is dead!” _ The voice crackles through a techno backbeat, repeating the last word over and over at different pitches.  _ “That’s the state a’my, state a’my, state a’my head!” _

Aradia giggles, and gets That Light in her eye, her wings flutter with crimson glitter. “Who’s first?”

“Yo.” Dirk lifts a finger.

He’s dressed in easily removed shorts and a racerback that disintegrates under Sollux’s eyelasers. He grabs Dirk’s hair, hauling his head back to bear his throat just to sink his fangs into the faint scar left over from the Sendificator Incident. The moan your brother lets out is sinful as fuck, and you scratch the record, making the vocals jump along with your dick. Fuck, he’s weak to that neck shit. He’s got a kink for it, you think. Probably same as you and falling.

Sollux forces Dirk to his knees, binding his arms back with red and blue electricity, and Aradia steps up to him with her hand stretched out.

This is the part where you always have to look away.

She runs him through a series of deaths that take little more than twenty minutes but practically shatter his connection to his body. His Heart actually vibrates against her Time in audible sonic pulses, which have Sollux dripping gold down Dirk’s back.

“Ffffuck, DV… send us forward.” He shudders, on the brink of plateau.

You oblige, just because the two of you are co-death day celebrants today, but you’re distracted by the way Dirk’s breath heaves. The connection the two of you have tells you that he’s Nearly There, that Aradia’s edging him, holding his orgasm in one hand and his Heart in the other.

Race forward, race back.

Fuck that’s hot.

You send them through the Timestream, slipping from year to year with little regard as to when you end up, but every shudder against the Doomed Timelines makes Sollux buckle and swear, gripping Dirk’s shoulders as his senses explode with all the Dead Selves you’d be piling up if you let any of the loops remain open.

Dirk screams, his throat open and raw, and that’s it, you can’t sit on the sidelines anymore.

You appear, clearly having sent the whole lot of you into the future where everything is over, and come back to literally  _ come _ back.

Next thing you know Dirk’s on your dick. Where’d your pants go? Who the fuck cares? Hell yeah, suck it  _ just like that. _

Aradia presses her hand against your back and you feel another you reach up under your arms to play with your nipples. Then there’s a bulge at your mouth, and how the hell did there get to be four Solluxes? You can’t breathe and it pushes you higher.

_ Higher, yes - more, more! _

Aradia drags you to the ceiling and you fall -  _ god, how you fall _ \- into Sollux’s arms, teeth clashing and blood dribbling down your chin.

In the background, a woman’s voice warbles,  _ “I will never be satisfied!” _

And you think  _ oh, fuck that _ .

It builds and it builds and it builds, and the music dies out just as all four of you reach maximum multi-selves, all locked in that same room, fucking like a goddamned symphony. Writhing and churning. Grinding and half of you are bound in psionics that gag you and hold you open all at the same time, and the other half are pulling hair and tearing clothes that just don’t matter in the long run. And you’re all pushing for something.

A crescendo when the music’s gone, and the world is frozen in Time. Darkness makes the colors look like fireworks in your vision, but the Edge. It’s there. Just beyond your fingertips as you grow and expand and multiply!

_ CLICK-BOOM! _

Your awareness focuses on a single point. One star among the multitudes, and you gasp, sending light through your mind like a drunk firefly. To your left someone groans. To your right there’s a mouth on your ear. Sweat and spunk invade your nostrils. Your back is cold. Your front is warm. There are places that are chafed that you didn’t even know you had places.

You try a blink, and  _ oh fuck, _ your body does not want that to happen.

“Here, bro.” Dirk’s voice is hoarse. You think you remember someone strangling him. It might have been you, for a while.

He places your shades on your face, and you can barely lift your arm to push them up where they’re comfortable. You try to answer him, but your voice is completely gone.

“Yeah, don’t try, DV. AA really did a number on your face.”

Sollux is the groaning shape pinning down your left arm. He feels like a worn out dishcloth, limp and wet. You can just imagine the red and yellow smears all over him. 

But this isn’t your first rodeo, so you Sign at him, ‘What she do to you, man?’

“I don’t think I have legth.” He chuckles, and the mouth to your right, who must be Aradia, giggles.

“I only did what you all asked of me. Don’t blame me for your aches and pains.” She’s far too chipper to have been involved in this clusterfuck. “Of course I enjoyed it. Don’t be silly, Dave.”

“No answering questions that haven’t been asked yet, Indiana.”

She just giggles again.

That’s when you notice you’re being washed off. Gentle hands too small to be Dirk or Sollux, and the calluses are wrong for Aradia. And you’d know your own hands anywhen, so you’re definitely out - plus, you try not to interact with yourselves physically as much as possible.

“Don’t even try, Dave.” Kitkat’s rough voice is music to your ears. “I’ve packed your Timetables - which you weren’t supposed to be using any more,  _ remember? _ \- away, and cleaned up the remains of what had to have been at least four bot-sploded Daves. So please just lay here and let me fucking pamper you for a second.”

Ah, Kitkat. How little does he know you deliberately don’t count seconds when he’s involved.

You must doze off for a bit - or die again, you’re not sure which - because the next thing you know your Time is telling you it’s ten minutes (eight minutes, fifty-seven point three, point four, point five seconds) later and you’re curled on your bed, your shades on the nightstand, your Kitkat under your arm.

A flicker of your gaze around your room, and you register that Aradia’s taken you back in Time again, to the night before. It’s quiet. There’s a tic-tic-tic from the clock on the wall. It’s soothing and brightly measures the insect and animal noises into a metered beat that reminds you of long nights sampling and re-sampling the highway sounds for the perfect track. Darkness, with a certain lack of light pollution, lets you memorize the play of soft blue moonlight across the world outside your window. Or at least what you can see of it. A firefly blinks from one side to the other, and the sliver of sky visible from your angle is freckled with stars.

If anyone asked, you’d have to say the Game has made everything perfect… for now.

**Author's Note:**

> For fun, the two songs quoted during the orgy are:
> 
> [State of My Head - Shinedown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XbLPYPbi1U)  
> [Satisfied - Hamilton soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0EqxnWxlvY)
> 
> But Dave remixed them both, so these aren't the versions they fucked to. Sorry. ^_^0


End file.
